G5 - How do I remove the metalplate seperating HDD/DVD-part

[NurkJon]

I've just started tearing everything out of my G5 case in preparation for my G5 mod, I'm almost done with the tear down however I'm stuck with what's probably the last part and that is the metal plate which separates the mobo, etc part from the part with the hdd-bay, dvd and such. I will have to remove this part as I'm going to remove the fan there, move the hdd bay and make a hole so that my ATX mobo will fit.

I know that here's lots and lots of G5 moders so I though what better place to ask then here.

Ps. I have unscrewed the screws in the bottom so I can move the plate around a bit but not by a lot, I've also removed the pins that secure the door the the case is closed but I'm unable to figure out a suitable way to remove the plastic rail.

Edit: Never mind, managed to remove the plastic rail and after that the plate were quite easy to remove.

 

[eelhead]

The three latches that hold the side panel on have a clip on the back of them. Flip case upside down. They are simply pressed in and easily removed with a small screwdriver. You pop those clips off and the three latches pull right out after that. Then you undo the screws along that channel, I think there is 5 or 6 of those, they are torx bit (forgot what size). Once that is done you need to go to where the latch is connected and remove the little c clip on the pin and pull out pin from inside. Once the plastic rail is unfastened from the latch lever and all screws are out you can see that it is slotted with one end of each slot wider for the screw studs. You move that plastic rail so the wider openings are aligned with the studs and pull rail out with a slight twist. Once removed you then do all the little black screws along the other panel holding shelf on. And that should be it, shelf should be easily removed and you can cut to size if thats what your doing. May I suggest though leaving just enough of the metal on the front edge so you can mount it back in with the plastic tray like the photo above. It keeps it tight together along the rail with the metal.

If you need more info or pics let me know I have a half build guide I am going to post here on the how to's of G5 modding.

 

[NurkJon]

I'm thinking about using the original standoffs and just glue them in the atx positions with epoxy and just grind them down a few mm so that they're the right hight for the GPU.

What do you think about that?

 

[eelhead]

They will work just fine to do that. I have my set up using the original standoffs at first but then I needed to utilize more PCI openings then just the ones the G5 offer.
Most people use JB weld to affix the standoffs to the case.
There are two different size standoffs make sure you use the smaller ones so you have less to grind down lol. You will only need to take off about 3-4mm for your PCI cards to fit snug in the PCI openings.

 

[NurkJon]

They will work just fine to do that. I have my set up using the original standoffs at first but then I needed to utilize more PCI openings then just the ones the G5 offer.
Most people use JB weld to affix the standoffs to the case.
There are two different size standoffs make sure you use the smaller ones so you have less to grind down lol. You will only need to take off about 3-4mm for your PCI cards to fit snug in the PCI openings.

My G5 seems to be slightly different from many other G5s, maybe because it's a first generation single CPU.

However I screwed all the short standoffs to the mobo and layed down the mobo in the case where I want to have the mobo when I'm done, then I proceeded to put a GPU in the top PCI-E slot and it aligned perfectly with the PCI openings however as I'm missing one standoff (there were only 8 short ones) I'll have to saw of one of the longer ones and then grind the last bit so it's the same length as the others. But it will be a tight fit for the I/O. I want to cut of the stock I/O part from the G5-mobo and connect to the new mobo so I can get that unmodified feeling when it's all done. Also hopefully my Corsair power supply won't be to high to fit in the original PSU case, but wow that thing is long.

Edit: Do you have any good ATX mount point map that can be printed on 2-3 standard A4 papers so that I know where I should glue the standoffs, wouldn't be fun if I'd glue it so that it wouldn't fit the holes later.

 

[eelhead]

http://www.formfactors.org/developer%5C ... atx2_2.pdf

Try that ^
I had a dead x58a board I was able to use

 

[NurkJon]

http://www.formfactors.org/developer%5Cspecs%5Catx2_2.pdf

Try that ^
I had a dead x58a board I was able to use

To bad it's not to scale, would certainly be nice to find some already scaled for printing on A4, I used to have one of them sheets which I've got from an Fractal case but I ain't got it any more.

 

[bones123]

I used an old ATX motherboard, attached the screws to the standoffs and applied the jb weld to the bottom of the standoffs. I put the motherboard where I needed it and than placed a little 5lb weight on top. Next day unscrew the template motherboard and your done.

 

[NurkJon]

I used an old ATX motherboard, attached the screws to the standoffs and applied the jb weld to the bottom of the standoffs. I put the motherboard where I needed it and than placed a little 5lb weight on top. Next day unscrew the template motherboard and your done.

Problem is that at this moment I've only got one spare ATX Motherboard which wouldn't have been a problem if it weren't because Asus moved one of the mount points from the ATX-position to a m-ATX position because of the way they've placed the soundchip and on top of that the mobo is all crooked from an 2kg (4.5 pound) True Copper cooler so the entire mobo is concave. This time around I'm going with the much lighter (25%) Noctua NH-D14 however that doesn't help me now.

 

[SPerk15]

thanks for this thread, good tips and posts by all!